Joe Manganiello

“I think you can be athletic and intellectual at the same time.”

“I've always been an athletic guy, but the extent to which I go for 'True Blood' or for 'Magic Mike' is because of the role that I'm playing.”

“I got to L.A. in 2000, when we were coming off the '90s: women looked like men and the men all looked like women.”

“Also, to be honest, my dad wanted me to be an athlete. And I think all sons want to prove something to their dad. So now, aged 35, I want to see what I can achieve physically.”

“When I first got out of drama school, my original manager tried to get me to change my name because people were having trouble spelling it and saying it.”

“Acting was the only place that I ever felt like I belonged so went for it with everything I had.”

“I was kind of a dark kid. I loved Halloween, and I loved vampires and the black and white old monster movies.”

“I mean, I feel like I've been pretending I was a werewolf since I was a little kid.”

“I started working at clubs when I was sixteen, which is young. I would not want my kid doing that, but I did, and that's how it went.”

“I mean, everyone walks into the gym on day one skinny or fat. Arnold Schwarzenegger walked into the gym skinny at 15 or 16, and I was that way, too.”

“I watched so many comic book movies where the actors weren't as built as the characters in the book. It made me mad because they didn't look right.”

“Acting was my first love.”

“I come from classical theater training and when I went to college it was a bunch of kids that were hand-picked from around the world. I was around such brilliant young minds and incredible artists with incredible teachers.”

“I grew up a big comic book reader, as a kid, and I love the whole fanboy crowd.”

“I wake up at the same time every day to get to the gym.”

“I was happier going back to my roots: training like men do in my hometown of Pittsburgh. Back home the guys in the gyms don't lift to look good; they're lifting to lift. They do it because they want to squat more and bench more.”

“I had a fan make me a silver wolf-tooth necklace. That was really great.”

“When I was growing up, it was Clint Eastwood, it was Harrison Ford and Steve McQueen - these guys were tough. They were leading men, but they were also tough and physical.”

“It's tricky when I'm constantly traveling and adjusting to new time zones and trying to also keep up with my workouts.”

“I train like a pro-athlete, not like an actor who's just trying to look pretty.”